Power converters operating off an AC line generally have holdover capacitors to serve as a holdover energy source allowing a converter to operate for some time after the AC line voltage is interrupted. These capacitors are charged via direct rectification of the input AC voltage or they are charged via a power factor correcting preregulator. The voltage developed across these capacitors is then processed by a DC-to-DC converter. With a given capability of a DC-to-DC converter to operate over the range of input voltages, the capacitor size determines the holdover time; the time for which the capacitor's voltage is still within the operating range of the DC-to-DC converter.
Typically a compromise must be made between the size of the holdover capacitor and the desired holdover time. A large capacitor, which has a greater energy storage, increases the holdover time, but it also increases the expense and the overall size of the converter, and allowable cost and space may be limited in many applications. On the other hand a small capacitor may not have a sufficient energy storage capacity to provide a desired holdover time.
Even with a large holdover capacitor only a fraction of the stored energy is available to the DC-to-DC converter. Increases in the operational input voltage range of a DC-to-DC converter is not always feasible due to additional stress and dissipation in the converter caused by the wider input voltage range requirement.